From: Bloomberg
By Roger Runningen & Hans Nichols
Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon are among a dozen corporate leaders invited to a White House meeting today with President Barack Obama, who is pressing for broader action by government and private industry to guard against cyber attacks.
The meeting in the White House Situation Room comes a day after the top U.S. intelligence official told Congress that cyber attacks have moved past terrorism to become the top global threat. Six banks, including JPMorgan, were hit with a denial-of-service cyber attack yesterday.
Separately, law enforcement agencies began investigating the posting of purported financial information of celebrities, government officials and first lady Michelle Obama.
“What is absolutely true is that we have seen a steady ramping up of cybersecurity threats,” Obama said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” program broadcast today. “Some are state-sponsored,” and “some are just sponsored by criminals.”
A list of those invited to meet with Obama was provided by two people familiar with the session, who asked to remain anonymous because the names hadn’t been made public.
Executives Invited
Along with Tillerson and Dimon, the executives invited to the afternoon meeting include: Nicholas K. Akins, CEO of American Electric Power Company Inc.; Wesley G. Bush, CEO of Northrop Grumman Corp.; Clarence P. Cazalot Jr., chief executive of Marathon Oil Corp.; Honeywell Inc. CEO David M. Cote; United Parcel Service Inc. CEO D. Scott Davis; David F. Melcher, chief executive of Exelis Inc.; Brian T. Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America Corp.; Eric Spiegel, CEO of Siemens Corp.; Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T Inc.; and Maggie Wilderotter, chief executive of Frontier Communications Corp.
The president is scheduled to talk with the executives for about 20 minutes. Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling and Michael Daniel, Obama’s cybersecurity coordinator, are among the White House officials also in the session, according to the invitation.
Obama issued an executive order Feb. 12 outlining policies for wider sharing of government data on hacking with companies, particularly operators of vital infrastructure such as power grids. The order directed the government to develop voluntary cybersecurity standards for those businesses and instructs U.S. agencies to consider adding the standards to existing rules.
Cyber Threat
James Clapper, the U.S. director of national intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday that hostile hackers or an “isolated state” may succeed in breaching U.S. computer networks and disrupting power grids and other vital services in the next two years.
Asked during testimony whether the threats are accelerating, Clapper said, “Absolutely.”
Administration officials have cited China as one source of cyber intrusions, and Obama in the ABC interview that the U.S. will “have some pretty tough talks with them” about the issue.
Also yesterday, Carl Herberger, a vice president for the network security firm Radware Ltd. in Tel-Aviv, said multiple banks were under attack. While he declined to name them, JPMorgan spokesman Michael Fusco said an attack blocked the bank’s website. Fusco said no customer data had been affected. The site has been restored to working order.
A group calling itself Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters took responsibility for similar attacks on U.S. banks in December. Denial-of-service attacks flood Internet sites with traffic, blocking access. The group said in an online posting yesterday it would keep trying to disrupt banks, naming eight others as targets.
The Secret Service has opened an investigation into the matter involving the first lady, said Brian Leary, a spokesman for the agency. He declined to comment further on the probe.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the posting of the alleged personal financial documents that hackers said belonged to celebrities and government officials, Jenny Shearer, an agency spokeswoman, said by e-mail.
Leave a Reply